Tishomingo Saving Institution v. Allen, West & Bush

• Decision Date: 21 March 1898
• Parties: TISHOMINGO SAVING INSTITUTION ET AL. v. ALLEN, WEST & BUSH
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

23 So. 958

76 Miss. 131

TISHOMINGO SAVING INSTITUTION ET AL. v. ALLEN, WEST & BUSH

Supreme Court of Mississippi

March 21, 1898

March 1898

Suggestion overruled.

E. H. Bristow, for appellants, after the rendition of the foregoing opinion, filed an elaborate suggestion of error, to which the court made the following response, denying the same:

OPINION

WHITFIELD, J.

The assignment opens with "Granting, etc., after reserving to themselves, and each of them respectively, the property, real and personal, which by law they are entitled to as exempt, . . . all and singular the lands, tenements, and hereditaments of the said parties of the first part, wherever situated, and especially that situated, lying, and being in the counties of Alcorn and Lee and State of Mississippi, and all the goods, chattels, wares, merchandise, bills, bonds, notes, book accounts, claims, demands, judgments, choses in action, evidences of debts, and all property of every description and nature, of the said first parties, whether as co-partners or as individuals, saving and reserving only as aforesaid, " etc. And then, after setting out the various provisions of the assignment, the grantors, by way of final summary, say: "It being the purpose and intention of the said first parties, both as partners and as individuals, to devote, in the way, manner, and mode aforesaid, outside of their legal exemptions, as hereinbefore provided, to the payment, etc., their entire partnership and individual property of every kind or description as aforesaid, saving, " etc. Could the intent to assign all property of every kind--money and everything else--be manifested in language plainer, clearer, more unmistakable?

We said nothing as to the doctrine of ejusdem generis in our opinion, because we thought the intent too plainly manifest to leave room for any discussion of that doctrine. So great however, is our regard for the eminent counsel representing appellant that we have re-examined the subject, with the result of greatly strengthening our confidence in the correctness of the conclusion first arrived at. Take the comprehensive description first above cited in granting part of the assignment, and in the summary, and how applicable are these words from the United States supreme court, in Alabama v. Montague , 117 U.S. 602, 610, 29 L.Ed. 1000, 6 S.Ct. 911: "It is not to be denied that, in a writing descriptive of property to be...